The Danish Institute for Human Rights has looked at investment decisions by institutional investors. The key finding is that social issues are not seen as material to business. Therefore they are not taken into account. And even where they are seen as material, they are difficult to quantify.

The sad truth is that most social issues are not financially material to business – at least as businesses are currently constructed. That is not an argument for ignoring them. For major businesses, it is an argument for changing the terms of listing. Disclosure of the principal social (and environmental) impacts should be made a condition of listing.

The current regime only requires disclosure of an issue if it is financially-material (which means relevant to shareholders). This might have been credible in the days before the crash when the market was supposed to sort everything out, in its invisible-handed way.

These days we need to develop stakeholder-materiality – and consider what everyone else cares about.